First Friday, the specialist retail staff training company, is currently working with key staff at Laura Ashley’s London headquarters to maximise the potential in buying and merchandising for the fashion and home furnishings retailer.

It is an early win for the newly launched company whose philosophy is to help retail businesses enjoy better performance by training their staff to be more efficient and effective in their jobs.

The First Friday team is developing and delivering a number of practical courses in the head office which will have a direct effect on the consistency of the approach and use of best practice within buying and merchandising.

This marks a change in direction for Laura Ashley, who, before using the skills of First Friday, used to undertake all their own buying and merchandising training in-house until deciding to use a specialist company, capable of providing a rolling programme which could be properly followed up and built on in the future.
Human Resources Manager, Karen Hann, said First Friday’s work has been of a high quality and she has received nothing but positive feedback from her colleagues: “It’s been received very well,” Karen said. “The trainers are very knowledgeable and experienced within the industry and can bring in a different perspective. They have quickly familiarised themselves with our brand and have built up good working relationships with key contacts within Laura Ashley.”

The Laura Ashley contract has enabled the unrivalled knowledge of the First Friday team to come to the fore. Their experience within the retail industry in providing effective, job-specific training to help staff sharpen their competitive edge is being praised by Laura Ashley, as well as other clients, who wish to use specialist training experts to develop and deliver key training and development programmes

The First Friday team, who have all held senior positions within the retail training industry, are very flexible in their approach and develop and deliver tailored training solutions to fit the different needs of each retailer. They use a variety of different training solutions, ranging from one-to-one training to classroom training and from printed materials to computer-based training and E-Learning.

Based in Great Missenden, Bucks, First Friday will travel to either a client’s head office or stores nationwide to deliver a comprehensive training programme aimed at helping staff perform better in the workplace to directly benefit business. For the Laura Ashley contract, a wide range of courses were developed and delivered to fit the specific needs of the buying and merchandising teams. The course subjects included budgeting, WSSI, line forecasting and ordering, branch merchandising, stock allocation, price and margin management, critical path management and interpreting reports.

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